Two words - Brent Mayne.

Lenny Harris had an 80 OPS+ 4289 PAs as mostly a 3rd baseman, corner OFer and pinch hitter. He did have a couple of decent seasons early in his career though, which may disqualify him.

My "Bad" Baseball Team of my lifetime (1990-present day) with a requirement of 4000 PAs (3500 for catchers)

C - Greg Myers (Pat Borders close, but playoff heroics might disqualify him)
1B - Kevin Young
2B - Luis Alicea
3B - Ed Sprague (maybe Geoff Blum, Toronto World Series heroics strike again)
SS - Rey Sanchez
LF - Wil Cordero
CF - Tom Goodwin
RF - Michael Tucker

With a rotation of
Mark Gardner
Jamey Wright
Brett Tomko
Frank Castillo
Bobby Jones

Maybe Joe Borowski can close?

If you just go by OPS+, with a minimum of 843 plate appearances and six seasons, Sandy Koufax and Nolan Ryan are the second- and fourth-worst players of all time. Of course, they had some defensive value.

If you eliminate pitchers, catchers, and middle infielders, Alex Diaz has the worst OPS+ among qualifiers.

Brian Moehler has got to be in that rotation.

6 seasons and 843 plate appearances isn't a very high bar to cross. BBBHOF candidate at third base Doug Strange got 9 seasons and more than 2000. Of course there are more potential stops on the journeyman's journey now than in Uecker's day.

How about most of the middle infielders of the 1960s and early 70s? Some samples:

Hal Lanier - 3940 PA, 49 OPS+
Bobby Wine - 3467 PA, 55 OPS+
Dal Maxvill - 3898 PA, 57 OPS+
Doug Flynn - 4085 PA, 57 OPS+

There are 152 non-pitchers with 843 PA and a worse OPS+ than Uecker. Not all of them hung around for six seasons though.

Without doing any research...Tim Foli-Pirates..now does quick and dirty check....

Yep, 16! seasons..OPS+ of 64!!

Damn you #7, you are not as lazy as I and actually did more research.

How soon before someone starts the Hall of Demerit?

I'd nominate Tommy Thevenow (51 OPS+, 4484 PAs) at short, Jesus Alou (86, 4577) as a corner outfielder, and the incomparable Bill Bergen (21, 3228) to catch. The two "aces" can be Kevin Jarvis and Jay Hook.

Both of the players from whom I created my username here qualify.

Kiko Garcia, 10 seasons, 1,595 PA, OPS+ 71 (.239/.286/.323). He replaced Mark Belanger as the Orioles' starting SS in 1979 because he was a better hitter than Belanger. Yep, Belanger was really that bad a hitter (career OPS+ of 68, his OPS+ in 1979 was 36); of course, he was also that good of a fielder. Garcia wasn't.

Lenn Sakata, 11 seasons, 1,423 PA, OPS+ 71 (.230/.286/.330). His one career game at catcher was truly a game for the ages.

Jesus Alou (86, 4577)

And gets extra points with Easter coming up!

Yuniesky Betancourt, a nation turns its lonely eyes to you. At first glance, the 82 career OPS+ doesn't do it, but add in -5 runs per season of defensive accomplishment and he's gotta be in the discussion.

His one career game at catcher was truly a game for the ages."

The famous 3-pickoff inning makes much more sense knowing that a 2bman was behind the plate. That must have been a surreal game.

Lenn Sakata, 11 seasons, 1,423 PA, OPS+ 71 (.230/.286/.330). His one career game at catcher was truly a game for the ages.

I was part of the standing ovation he got during this game when he singled and raised his lifetime batting average against the White Sox to .015.

With so many ungreats to consider, I think Joe's 3 is an important part of the process. To be a bad baseball hall of famer, you've got to bring some more negativity to the table than just simple poor play.

I was part of the standing ovation he got during this game when he singled and raised his lifetime batting average against the White Sox to .015.

His career OPS+ of -22 against the White Sox is quite something...

The case for Timo Perez:

1. Played a relatively long time in the big leagues.

Played eight seasons, 1,856 PAs.

2. Showed a remarkable Hall of Fame level consistency for playing poorly.

81 OPS+ for a corner outfielder, including consecutive years of 75, 61, 48 and 57.

3. Provided some bad baseball intangibles that make their case even stronger.

Helped lose a World Series with terrible baserunning. Was part of a World Series champion in 2005, but his biggest contribution was the oversized pair of panties he hung in the locker room in an attempt to end a losing streak.

He was also the only position player on the 2005 White Sox who didn't contribute in any sort of measurable way offensively during the playoffs. Even Chris Widger drew a walk.

To continue in the vein started by #7, Ray Oyler, Johnnie Lemaster, Rod Kanehl.

Brad Asumus - 75 OPS+ in 7030 PAs - and counting.

But even that's better than it seems, because 11% of his walks have been intentional, based not on his awesome batting prowess(!) but just to get to the pitcher. That's fully 10 point of his OBP. His "real" line is .252/.315/.344, which comes out to a 72 OPS+. And he's a constant GiDP threat - he ranks 87th of all time in grounding into double plays! Ausmus is a BBHoFer on the basepaths too. Like all catchers, he's slow, but uinlike most, he tries to steal anyway - did you know Ausmus has been caught stealing 53 times in his career (66% success rate)?

Now I know what you're all thinking - that it's all well and good stinking up the joint when the pressure's off, but a true Bad Baseball Hall of Famer falls apart in the clutch! Well fret thee not, because Ausmus' statistics were essentially identical with men on or RISP - and in close and late situations, he really rose to the challenge, and stunk even more. Hitting .233/.298/.327 when it really matters, over 1164 PAs... that's something special.

But what about the postseason, I hear you cry? Well, Ausmus's teams haven't been in the playoffs that often (in large part because they were starting Brad Ausmus at catcher) but when they did, his .245/.308/.377 line didn't disappoint. And in his one trip to the World Series, he made crucial outs in the bottom of the 9th in both game 1 and game 4, and in the marathon 14-inning game 3, managed to go 0/6 with a GiDP. It's true BBHoF performances like that which caused the Astros to get swept.

Now, what about consistency? Well, in truth, Ausmus did have one or two passable seasons, but I feel these were more than balanced out by the truly abysmal ones - and I like to think that, as Joe Morgan has so often said, you have to learn consistency at the big league level. And indeed, during his entire second spell with the Astros, which was 9 seasons and over 3500 PAs, he never once posted an OPS+ above 80, and was 60 or lower in 4 separate seasons.

How is he in the field? Well, catcher defense is notoriously hard to evaluate. In the parts we can measure, he's had an average arm, but above average glove. Pitchers think he's a great game-caller, and he is widely talked about as a future manager. He has tried to set an example for Jewish baseball players to look up to, and even declined to play on Yom Kippur in 2001, "trying to atone for my poor first half." Considering he was hitting .194/.261/.269 at the time, I think true atonement would have been taking the rest of the season off, but we'll let that one pass. All told, I think he passes the intangibles test too. His case for the Bad Baseball Hall of Fame can be summed up by this exchange:

Phil Garner: "I have to keep playing him [Ausmus], because if he starts managing, he'll be better than me."

Ausmus: "Yeah, but if he keeps playing me, he may end up losing his job anyway."

Just looked up Wil Cordero's BB-Ref page. The sponsorship message:

Wil - versatile in the field and an underrated slugger...

...of his wife.

Johnnie LeMaster has to be an inner-circle bad hall of famer. "Boo" amassed 3515 ABs over 12 years, with an OPS+ of *60* and an OPS of .566. Truly spectacular.

Rey Ordonez.

1. Played a relatively long time in the big leagues.

Nine seasons, 3407 PA's.

2. Showed a remarkable Hall of Fame level consistency for playing poorly.

OPS+'s in his seven years with the Mets: 60, 36, 53, 64, 32, 67, 65. Overrated defense.

3. Provided some bad baseball intangibles that make their case even stronger.

Had a reputation of being stubborn and unwilling to learn. Called Mets fans stupid. Allegedly failed to pay child support.

Mike Kekich belongs in the rotation. Under Poz's Jim Walkup Rule, only five pitchers have worse ERA+'s- Walkup and four guys who pitched in the 1880's. I'm not sure if the intangible he's known for makes him a good teammate or not.

Two words - Brent Mayne.

No way. I'm sorry, but Brent Mayne gets a lifetime pass for being the winning pitcher in one of the most amazing games I've ever seen. I still have the box score taped to the door of my fridge 10 (?) years later.

Everett Scott strikes me as a strong candidate - 65 OPS+ over 6373 PA, never broke 80 in a single season. The only trouble is that I'm not sure whether the fact that he played 1307 consecutive games would be helpful or harmful to his BBHOF case. I mean, it's a fairly impressive accomplishment, and it suggests that his glove was at least worth keeping around. On the other hand, it also means that his bat was draining runs away from his team every single day.

One note of caution for idiots like me who are apt to find some old time dude in b-ref who you never saw play but see he has a terrible OPS+ or some other bad batting metric--he might just have been an excellent defensive player, and we have no good metrics to know that. Of course, he might belong in the BaBHOF. But it helps if you either saw him play or know that the numbers you are basing your opinion on tell his full story.

Note 1: I say all of this because I once pointed out some old dude who I never saw play and said in a post on here, "Wow, that dude sucked. How did he last X number of years?" And someone smarter, I think Steve Treder, pointed out that the old dude was a defensive god. And I went back in my shell thinking, "Man, what a dumb #### I am."

Note 2: I am sure I will suggest someone to the BaBHOF in the next few minutes who will inspire someone more knowledgable to point out the error of my ways.

Man, the late 70s Cardinals have a few candidates. Ken Reitz. Mike Tyson. Tony Scott. Ted Sizemore. Ugh.

Bobby Jones was a one-time all-star, and pitched a great one-hitter in the playoffs. Disqualified.
Where is the unlove for Mario Mendoza? What of his disesteemed LINE?
1456 PA, .215 /.245 /.262 OPS+ 41.

RHP John Coleman, 842 IP, 23-72, ERA+ 67.

"How soon before someone starts the Hall of Demerit?"

Wow, that could totally happen, says the first voter in the first-ever Hall of Merit tallying back in "1898" - really 2003, but I digress.....

For a pitcher, Hugh Mulcahy wasn't THAT bad: 90 ERA+ over 1,161.2 career IP. But he DEFINITELY has a BaBHOF nickname: Hugh "Losing Pitcher" Mulcahy. And he earned it: 45-89 in 220 career games and in 4 years as a full-time starter he went 40-76 with two league-leading 20-loss seasons.

Everett Scott strikes me as a strong candidate

It's strange that when I type "Everett Scott" into the bb-ref Search box, it sends me to his minor league page. But anyway, Scott and his .357 World Series OPS started for four teams that won the WS and a fifth pennant winner.

For a pitcher, Hugh Mulcahy wasn't THAT bad: 90 ERA+ over 1,161.2 career IP. But he DEFINITELY has a BaBHOF nickname: Hugh "Losing Pitcher" Mulcahy. And he earned it: 45-89 in 220 career games and in 4 years as a full-time starter he went 40-76 with two league-leading 20-loss seasons.

Just imagine how bad he would have been if he hadn't missed all those years due to the war!

I looked up Anthony Young with the idea of nominating him, but to my shock I found he has a career ERA+ of 100 despite a career record of 15-48. In '93 he went 1-16 with an ERA+ of 108. Geez, poor guy ...

I have two candidates I came across:

1. Wally Gilbert, 3B, 1928-1932, 2,558 PAs, 70 OPS+;
2. Frank Ellerbe, 3B, 1919-1924, 1,622 PAs, 68 OPS+

Ellerbe played on a very good (98-56, 2nd place) St. Louis Browns team in 1922. Every hitter in that starting line-up not on the left side of the infield was excellent. I guess Ellerbe had heart:

C Hank Severeid 100 OPS+
1B George Sisler* 170
2B Marty McManus 108
SS Wally Gerber 70
3B Frank Ellerbe 59
OF Ken Williams* 164
OF Jack Tobin* 120
OF Baby Doll Jacobson 115

EDIT: Damn, I got distracted for a few minutes and Dayn beat me to it.

I looked up Anthony Young with the idea of nominating him, but to my shock I found he has a career ERA+ of 100 despite a career record of 15-48. In '93 he went 1-16 with an ERA+ of 108. Geez, poor guy ...

That Mets team finished 14 games below their Pythagorean record. That team had a lot of bad luck, but it fell disproportionately on Young.

I think I just realized who belongs as the inner, inner circle BaBHOFer, the Babe Ruth of bad baseball--Tony Muser.

Not only was Muser one of the worst manager's of all time--his ineptitude made for some good laughs reading Rob & Rany on the Royals--but Tony was a truly terrible player:

He had 1,389 PAs in 531 games over 9 seasons in the bigs. He played 1B for 505 of those games and 37 times he was a DH. His career OPS+ was 81. I don't know how good his defense was, but nothing could justify that hitting at 1B:

1969 -13 OPS+
1971 120
1972 113
1973 105
1974 86
1975 81
1975 57
1975 113
1976 62
1977 64
1978 26
Career 81

Hal Lanier - 3940 PA, 49 OPS+
Bobby Wine - 3467 PA, 55 OPS+
Dal Maxvill - 3898 PA, 57 OPS+
Doug Flynn - 4085 PA, 57 OPS+

Wow, nobody's nominated this guy yet?

Ozzie Guillen, 1993 games, 7133 PA, 68 OPS+. Alfredo Griffin gives him a run for his money though with over 7300 PA and a 67 OPS+.

Now if you want to hear something scary!! Ozzie Guillen is the 2nd best LH-hitting SS of the last 50 years!! Of course Craig Reynolds (80 OPS+) is the only other one to even amass 3000 PA. Stephen Drew will take over the lead with another 900 PA.

Obviously you'll get fewer LHB SS since they have to throw righty but you get a fair number of LHB 2B and 3B and I assume most of them started as SS.

But anyway, by the 843 PA crierion, you could pick almost any SS of the 70s and early 80s (or before). Mario Mendoza checks in with nearly 1500 PA and a 41 OPS+; Oyler at 48; Jackie Hernandez at 49; Bobby Wine at 55 (3500 PA); Dal Maxvill 57 (3900 PA). Veryzer, LeMaster, Dybzinski.

Anyway, back to Ozzie. Selective endpoints I know but Guillen and Griffin are the only players in MLB history with >7000 PA and OPS+ <70. Drop it to 6000 and Foli becomes the "leader" at 64. Drop it to 5000 and Ski Melillo (one of my faves) sneaks into the lead at 63. Ya gotta drop it to 4000 (or 4484) to pick up Thevenow at 51.

Using OPS+ only, I propose the following measure: PA*(100-OPS+). So Griffin comes in at 241,890; Thevenow at 219,716. By that measure, it's pretty close (given the scale) but ya gotta give it to Griffin. (Not proposing this as the sole measure of suckiness, just offensive suckiness). Divide by (5+gold gloves) to adjust for defense. :-)

Surprising (to me), there's very little on the C front. Luke Sewell at 6041 PA and 70 OPS+ and Mike Matheny at 4287 PA at 64 OPS+. Bergen will win it easily (he tops 255,000) but that almost feels like cheating because he's already famous for sucking.

Alas, Frenchie only comes in around 24,000 right now. Jesus Alou at 64,000.

Man, the late 70s Cardinals have a few candidates. Ken Reitz. Mike Tyson. Tony Scott. Ted Sizemore. Ugh.

The special feature that puts Reitz front and center out of this grouping: being treated in the press as a star. No kidding. That includes being grouped with Garry Templeton as the "best left side of the infield in baseball." Of course, his tendency to bat .400 in April contributed to that - then he spent the rest of every year being Ken Reitz.

Tyson was just some anonymous no-hit SS. Or he'd be anonymous if he didn't share a name with you-know who. Sizemore gets a little sympathy for being the guy stuck batting 2nd when Lou Brock went for his 118 SB season. Tony Scott was a fast guy who stole a few bases and played CF.

As for Whitey Herzog's eye for talent: he got rid of both Reitz and Scott. Not only did he get rid of them, he traded them for value back: Reitz along with Leon Durham to the Cubs for Bruce Sutter, Scott to the Astros for Joaquin Andujar. In Scott's case, given that his biggest problem was already that he couldn't hit, being traded into the Dome was not exactly healthy for his career.

In slight defense of Dal Maxvill: he really was a top-notch defensive SS. I'd think I'd rather have him than, say Alfredo Griffin. Extra demerits in Griffin's case: his adventurous sense of baserunning. Of course, if you've got Maxvill, it helps to have no more than 10 pitchers on the roster and a deep enough bench that you can afford to pinch hit for him and then bring in your backup SS.

...and the incomparable Bill Bergen (21, 3228) to catch.

Shouldn't that be the incompetent Bill Bergen...

Maxvill was a certifiable glove god, and Ted Sizemore hit over .300 as a rookie and only played as long as he did because people kept waiting for that to come back. On the other hand, Tony Scott was a center fielder that the manager before Whitey (Schoendienst, mainly) liked for no good reason, so he's a legitimate candidate. Reitz is a perfect candidate. He did all his hitting in April. "Tendency to bat .400 in April" is not an exaggeration, and he'd end up the year in the .240s with little power because, well, he was still hitting .300 in late May, and still hitting .280 at the All-Star break, so he kept on playing. And on defense, he was deeply overrated because he had an extremely flashy skill. Ken Reitz could take a grounder hit right at him, with a runner on first base, and appear to simply swat the ball with his hand on a hard line directly to second base with complete accuracy. He had the best stage magician's hands I've ever seen, including Mazeroski. However, the key phrase here is "right at him." Reitz had no range at all. But the hand speed was so startling that he looked like he just had to be a good glove.

The interesting thing about the Cardinals listed here is that they all played for the weakest managers the Cardinals have had since the 1950s. The 1970s was the Red Schoendienst era, and Luis Alicea was subjected to Joe Torre at his absolute worst (and wasn't that bad anyway, although he probably should have retired about 4 years before he did). I wonder if that's generally true - that bad players who play a long time play for managers too weak to replace them. It's plausible, at least.

As for the old guys, I think that, if you look up third basemen before about 1950, you'll find a lot of candidates. Third seems to have been a lost position from about Home Run Baker to about Eddie Mathews. There are a few good guys in there, but there are a lot of guys who are really bad. Dead ball era first basemen don't hit much, either. My personal working hypothesis is that the need for defenders who could handle bunts in quantity led to a lot of guys who could not do anything else. As the bunts went down, the quality of the hitting by corner infielders went up. Maybe the extreme quickness required to handle lots of bunts isn't usually compatible with the strength needed to hit the ball hard. I don't have any way of knowing stuff like that. - Brock Hanke

Nobody mentions Jose Lima?

Re: Everett Scott. My smell test is generally that if a team if good enough to win a pennant, it probably did not have many bad players. Of course there are counter examples. Scott's teams though frequently won pennants (1915-16, '18 Red Sox, '22-23 Yankees and part time with the '25 Senators), and they frequently led the league in least runs allowed. My instinct is that is difficult to do with a bad shortstop.

Everett Scott strikes me as a strong candidate - 65 OPS+ over 6373 PA, never broke 80 in a single season. The only trouble is that I'm not sure whether the fact that he played 1307 consecutive games would be helpful or harmful to his BBHOF case. I mean, it's a fairly impressive accomplishment, and it suggests that his glove was at least worth keeping around. On the other hand, it also means that his bat was draining runs away from his team every single day.

Everett Scott was considered to be a truly exceptional defensive player, though. The Ozzie Smith of his day (granted, without the OBP -- maybe more like the Dal Maxvill of his day, though still a tougher out than Hal Lanier). What was the replacement level offense from a SS in the teens and '20s? Does Scott's offensive value below replacement (was it, even?) offset the 25 or 30 runs saved in the field above replacement?

My first thoughts were Bergen, LeMaster, Andres Thomas (or - failing that - late 70s/early 80s Atlanta SS as a joint entry - remember Luis Gomez?), some of the Angel Salazar class shortstops ... it's easy to toss a lot of catchers and shortstops onto the pile, I guess - depending on how you view their gloves. Some run-only 70s outfielders might work too, if their gloves aren't good enough.

EDIT: Luis Gomez has 1391 PA over 8 seasons, career OPS+ of 40 (and a 26 the year he was Atlanta's starter). 6 SB, 22 CS (career). Assuredly considered a good fielder, but b-ref's metrics don't support this.

What's the consensus on how to define replacement level for early baseball history? Is there one?

The Ozzie Smith of his day (granted, without the OBP)

Also without the baserunning - for years in which B-R has CS data, Scott went 38 SB/60 CS. Stolen base percentages were considerably lower for deadball players, but that's still not good.

Obviously he had an outstanding glove; I'm not saying he was the worst player in the league or anything. But since this is a just-for-fun exercise anyway, it seemed worth recognizing a guy who was a complete zero with the bat and still managed to get his name in the lineup every day for eight consecutive years.

Yes, Everett Scott was the starting shortstop on five pennant-winners; not unlike Frankie Crosetti, who couldn't hit either but always seemed to be playing (in fact, usually leading off) in October.

The trouble with trying to find a guy who stuck around a long time and truly couldn't play is that it isn't easy to fool even the archetypal pound-that-Budweiser obtuse managers. After the thread yesterday I got to looking at left fielders who couldn't hit and noticed that Dan Gladden and Vince Coleman were among the worst OPS+ guys ever to play long careers in LF. But even they faced each other as leadoff hitters in the 1987 World Series – tending to show that if you are fast and can catch the ball, you can play a while as a major-league outfielder even without much to speak of in terms of OBP or power. Dan Gladden was a starter on two World Champions, both times having terrible years at bat, but I don't remember him as a bad player; he was a CF glove man out of position in left because the Twins already had a great CF, and if you compensated for his non-hitting in other ways, he could contribute something to a winning team. (Still doesn't mean it was a great idea to have him lead off, though.)

On that principle, give me Kevin Reimer for my All-Bad squad.

For a pitcher, Hugh Mulcahy wasn't THAT bad: 90 ERA+ over 1,161.2 career IP. But he DEFINITELY has a BaBHOF nickname: Hugh "Losing Pitcher" Mulcahy. And he earned it: 45-89 in 220 career games and in 4 years as a full-time starter he went 40-76 with two league-leading 20-loss seasons.

Just imagine how bad he would have been if he hadn't missed all those years due to the war!

In fairness to Mulcahy he was pitching for the Phillies when they were the worst team in MLB, out of the pennant race by opening day and surviving by trading or selling every player that generated any hint of interest from another team. It was just Mulcahy's bad luck that (for whatever reason) he didn't get traded and had to stay in Philadelphia and get his butt kicked on a regular basis.

Like all catchers, he's slow, but uinlike most, [Ausmus] tries to steal anyway - did you know Ausmus has been caught stealing 53 times in his career (66% success rate)?

How many of those are busted hit-and-run attempts? (Of course, most managers don't call the hit-and-run with the pitcher batting.)

Enzo Hernandez? 61 OPS+ in 2,612 PAs and played for some horrible teams in San Diego.

This thread is incomplete without nominating my favorite player of all time, Rafael Belliard. Over 2500 plate appearances, OPS+ of 46.

I nominate Luis Gomez for utility infielder. Career OPS+ of 40. 1300 PAs in 8 major league seasons. He was a truly mediocre infielder to boot. CHONE has him at -5 WAR for his career, with a 0.1 WAR as his "best" year. Hosken Powell is the trailer among 1930-2009 corner OFs with an impressive 79 mark. Amazingly, he is at 0.3 WAR for his career.

I guess you'd probably want an expansion exception to the Bad Baseball Hall of Fame. Gomez wouldn't have made the PA requirement without it.

I think one of the most important ways to acquire Posnanski's Item #3 (bad baseball intangibles) is to have an overly fawning press. That puts Francoeur in a class by himself among currently active players, although he is still working on his bad playing resume. You'll see above that bjhanke and I both nominate Ken Reitz under this criterion.

That's why I wouldn't nominate Mario Mendoza. He's really only famous for being a non-hitter, and he didn't hold down starting jobs all that often or all that long. Everyone knew who he was.

The 70's-80's SB guys all got good press; maybe we'll take Omar Moreno to represent them? (Or Coleman, if you insist, but Coleman was such a good baserunner that it starts to tilt things a little.) From the olden days, the man who practically defined "overly fawning press" was Hal Chase - but I'm not sure that Chase really fits into the spirit of what Posnanski is after, what with holding the unofficial career record for games thrown to gamblers. Or maybe he fits all too well.

David Howard.

In the long and distinguished history of terrible shortstops in Kansas City, he was the worst for the longest.

On the other hand, Tony Scott was a center fielder that the manager before Whitey (Schoendienst, mainly) liked for no good reason, so he's a legitimate candidate.

Scott was post-Schoendienst (other than Red's short interim gig in '80). Scott's Cardinal managers were Rapp and Boyer.

As for the other Scott, Everett, he held the record for consecutive games played before Gehrig, which ought to be enough to disqualify him from consideration.

These threads have got me thinking about the 1989 Texas Rangers, the first Ranger team I followed intensely after I moved here in '88. One strange thing about that club is that it might be in contention for the most years in aggregate career length ever assembled by a major-league roster (Palmeiro, Franco, Baines, Sierra, Sammy Sosa, Buddy Bell, Sundberg, Kevin Brown, Jeff Russell, plus (get this) Charlie Hough, Kenny Rogers, Nolan Ryan, and Jamie Moyer.

But another feature of the '89 Rangers is that several of them were notable for having among the lousiest long or long-ish careers in baseball history. Pete Incaviglia, Chad Kreuter, Geno Petralli, Steve Buechele, Scott Fletcher, and Bobby Witt. And yes, Kevin Reimer even played three games for them.

Regarding Kekich's intangibles:
Some guys would give their teammates the shirt off their back, but he went a lot further.

The 70's-80's SB guys all got good press; maybe we'll take Omar Moreno to represent them?

Gary Pettis?

I'm old, so Marv Throneberry is my nomination. Lasted 7+ years, below average hitter for a 1b/OF, and just the worst looking fielder I ever saw. It seemd the ball was as likely to hit him on the head as to hit his glove. If Jethro Clampett played baseball, he would have been Marv Throneberry.

Similar OPS+ (Pettis 80 to Moreno 79), but Pettis's general reputation came more from the "glove man" side, and he did win 5 Gold Gloves. Moreno played more than Pettis, never won a GG, spent a greater fraction of his time batting leadoff, and led the league in CS more times (3) than in SB (2). One of those time he led in CS was in 1980, when he went 96-33. The SB leader was Ron LeFlore, at 97-19. And Moreno led the NL that year in outs made by a margin of 40.

jose macias, 7 years 1789PA 75OPS+ and only one IBB!

I think too many of the nominations in this thread have consisted of finding guys whose hitting stats look awful at Baseball-Reference, but who were studs with the glove. To be a true Bad Baseball Hall of Famer, you have to be bad both ways. The Dal Maxvills and Hal Laniers should be automatically eliminated because of their defense.

In that spirit, I'm going to second the nomination of Enzo Hernandez, who not only OPS+ed 61, but was also one-half of the worst defensive DP combo in baseball history, according to some study or other that Bill James did.

And since intangibles count here, why not Shea Hillenbrand. A 95 OPS+ for a corner infielder, combined with calling your boss a faggot on live radio, has to be worthy of consideration.

And lastly, how about Enos Cabell, a first baseman who OPS+ed 93 and was a coke fiend?

Johnnie LeMaster has to be an inner-circle bad hall of famer. "Boo" amassed 3515 ABs over 12 years, with an OPS+ of *60* and an OPS of .566. Truly spectacular.

Beat me to ... this. Add (i) regular for several years; (ii) at premium position; (iii) average defense at best, poor by reasonable standards; (iv) very high draft pick; and (v) generally surly attitude and you have what he was -- a unique, multi-dimensional disaster.

He's a guy like Cobb or Matty -- first ballot on first ballot.

At first glance he doesn't look super awful but Jim Presley was a guy who struck out a lot, had no speed, wasn't much of a third baseman and delayed Edgar Martinez' career. That's some hard work right there.

I remember Luis Gomez as this running joke I had with another kid way back when because he had all 0's in the HR column on the back of his baseball card. I seem to remember a little factoid on the back of another card saying he'd set a team errorless streak for SS. Of course, I think the team was Toronto, so a team record wouldn't have been very impressive at that time. And of course, it wouldn't say much about his overall defense anyway.

Eventually, we found another all 0 HR guy: Matt Alexander. But I think he managed it by being used pretty much exclusively as a pinch runner.

I always secretly was rooting for Gomez to have this huge comeback and start having 20 HR seasons. Alas, it was not to be.

No idea if his defense is properly measured in this stat, but Bill Bergen had an incredible -17.7 career WAR with all 11 of his seasons below replacement.